Celebrating the love of the Game.

I need a soapbox (regarding college three pointers)

I have begun to hate college teams that shoot a lot of threes. The shot is way too easy at the current line. The top 50 shooting teams all hit at least 38.2% of their three-point attempts. That is equal to 1.14 points per shot. To do that from inside the three-point line, a team would have to shoot 57%. I can’t find any stats for two-point percentage, but only four teams shoot better than 50% from the field. I checked the two-point percentage for those four teams and found only one hit 57% inside the line; I can’t imagine many others did the same. There’s certainly not 50+ teams that did it.

It’s also easier to get “hot” from beyond the line. When a team hits over 60% inside the line, they are getting mostly dunks and layups (i.e. working for their points or taking advantage of mistakes more than making shots), but teams regularly make 50% of their three-point shots in a single game. That’s like making 75% of their two-pointers! How often does that happen? It should be just as rare for a team to hit 50% of their threes.

Some teams shoot more than others, and that’s fine, but when you look at a lot of the biggest upsets or near upsets, the underdog either hit 50% or better or attempted more than 20 threes. Look at the biggest wins by good teams and you’ll see that they didn’t shoot many threes. The close three-point line is an equalizer unlike anything else seen in sports and allows teams to win despite not playing as well as the losing team.

But the good news is that the line is being moved a foot farther back for next year. It will bring percentages down, but will it bring them down enough? If not, I’m close to giving up on college basketball as a legitimate sport.